


A Reflection of the Past

by elfenphoenix



Series: Predestination [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Another Predestination one-shot, M/M, Voltron, because I cannot control myself, klance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-26
Updated: 2017-07-26
Packaged: 2018-12-07 11:03:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11622222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elfenphoenix/pseuds/elfenphoenix
Summary: Sometimes dreams can help us figure out who we really are. Clarifying the past, clearing the way for the future-- Keith and Lance come face-to-face with their past selves, Marmora and Althos, and it gives them the courage to come face-to-face with each other.





	A Reflection of the Past

**Author's Note:**

> This one-shot takes place just after the events of both "It's Destiny, After All", and the present-day part of Chapter 23 of Predestination.

**~Keith~**

Keith had a vague recollection of Lance telling him a story about going out star-watching with his _abuelo_ when he was a kid, while Keith was polishing his Galra blade, before he’d nodded off from exhaustion. He’d actually been listening-- it was nice to hear about Lance’s family. Until he’d been a part of Voltron, Keith had only really had Shiro, or his dad, for a brief time. He’d wondered what it was like to grow up in a fun, happy household.

But soon he’d started drifting off to sleep, only vaguely aware of Lance leaning over and kissing him on the cheek and whispering, “I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” an action that made his heart speed up just a little bit, but he hadn’t wanted to ruin by waking up entirely. And then he was somewhat aware of something being draped over his shoulders and lap-- Lance’s hoodie, he guessed. Warm and overwhelmingly happy, he’d fallen completely asleep almost immediately afterwards.

And then next thing he knew, he was back on Earth. Images, places he’d been were flashing through his head. His house in the desert with his father. A classroom in the Galaxy Garrison. The shack he’d lived in after getting kicked out, his flyer parked out front. And then the Cave of the Lion, with its carvings and paintings of the Blue Lion. It didn’t seem like he was traveling so much as one place seemed to simply fade into the next, like photographs appearing on developing paper. Ah, so this was a dream, then.

It was different from his journey through Red’s memories, with pictures flashing rapidly through his mind, sending all of his senses spinning. In this dream, each place took some time before it faded away, replaced with the next, allowing him plenty of time to look around, drinking it in.

The Blue Lion’s cave faded away into the Castle of Lions, but it looked a bit different from the one he knew. The empty, echoing hallways instead bustled with people. Altean engineers, scientists, medics, cooks, walked around him, talking and laughing as they went about their work. These weren’t his own memories anymore.

And then he was on the Galra homeworld, inside a house carved into the red stone hillside. As he looked out at it, he realized that it really didn’t look all that different from the desert on Earth, where they’d found the Blue Lion. He wondered if that was a coincidence. Probably not. From what he’d seen of the past so far, it didn’t seem like much of anything was a coincidence in his own life. It was more like what Red had told him as they’d flown through space: _It’s destiny, after all_.

The Galra homeworld faded, too, until he found himself sitting on a grassy hill, looking down at a city in the distance, afternoon sunlight glinting against spiraling white buildings, the Castle of Lions looming high above all of them. He remembered this place, even though he’d never been here himself. Something about the sight of it filled his chest with a warm, satisfied feeling, not unlike how he’d felt before drifting to sleep underneath Lance’s hoodie.

“This is how I always want to remember Altea,” he heard spoken from the grass next to him. He jumped, twisting to look at the person at his side.

It was… himself. Wait, no… he blinked, and the person changed just a bit. The clothes, which had at first looked just like his, now looked slightly different, a bit more like the outfits he had dug out of his closet earlier that day, when he’d been awake and not dreaming. His image of his own face had changed colors, from a fleshy white-pink-brown to a light purple, his black hair to a shiny dark violet.

“ _Marmora”_ , he breathed in disbelief.

“Hello, Keith,” the person next to him said with a shy smile.

“W-what’s going on? I’m just dreaming, right?”

“Yeah. There’s no way we could meet face-to-face in real life, since I’m a part of you.”

“This place… it doesn’t exist either, right?” Keith asked, looking away and pulling his legs in close to his chest and crossing his arms over them. It was a bit disorienting to look directly at Marmora for too long.

Marmora didn’t answer. Instead, he leaned back in the grass, saying, matter-of-factly “this is where I first let Althos kiss me.”

When Keith glanced over at him, he noticed a distinct darker violet dusting Marmora’s cheeks.

“From Red’s memories, you think my life was nothing but tragedy, don’t you?”

Keith shrugged. Marmora was right, of course, but that wasn’t a surprise. Marmora _was_ him, so it only made sense that he knew exactly what Keith thought.

“I wanted you to see this,” Marmora said, with a wave toward the city. “My happiest memory, instead of all the painful ones. I don’t want you to think that there’s nothing but grief in your future. Because it’s _these_ memories I held onto, even when I was fighting for my life, knowing I couldn’t win. The good ones, the ones that fill your heart with warmth and remind you that there’s always something worth fighting for. It might not seem like it, but I think I lived a happy life overall. Honestly.”

“Even though you couldn’t be with Althos?”

Marmora smiled. “I was with him long enough for it to matter.” A sword had appeared in his hands, looking almost identical to the one Keith had, and his physical body was still holding onto. The only difference was the black symbol carved into the metal of the blade-- a bird with outstretched wings, perched atop a spear embedded in the ground. Marmora was gently running a thumb over it, lovingly tracing each line.

“What was he like? Althos, I mean.”

“Well, he was even more obnoxious than Lance, if you can believe it,” Marmora snorted, although he was still smiling fondly. “But he mellowed out a bit when he got older. So you have that to look forward to.”

Keith laughed, relaxing a bit. “Lance? Mellow? No way.”

“I said he mellowed out a _bit_ , not completely,” Marmora replied with a wry grin. “And no matter how much you try not to, you’ll still love him for it.” He paused, his pupil-less yellow eyes seeming to focus intently on Keith’s face. “But that’s not what you really want to ask me, is it?”

Keith bit his lip, shaking his head. “Well… do you still think you made the right choice?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“It didn’t feel like much of a choice at all. If I didn’t stay and fight, Zarkon would have just killed Allura and gone after the Lions. I’d have barely a few more years with Althos before Zarkon found us and killed us both. At least this way… at least this way one of us would live a long, peaceful life. Wouldn’t you do the same thing?”

Keith didn’t need to answer. Of course he would.

“I made it possible for the two of you to meet, and pick up where we left off. That’s enough for me,” Marmora finished.

Keith looked up. It was getting dark, as the Altean sun was sinking down behind the mountains.

Marmora noticed it, too. “You’re going to wake up, soon,” he said, getting to his feet. “Don’t forget what I said, okay? Try not to hold onto the tragedies. It’s the good memories that will be with you when it’s most important, so make as many of them as you can.”

“Wait!” Keith called out, even as Marmora began to fade. “You really don’t regret anything?”

Marmora’s yellow eyes gazed back at him. “You can’t afford to stay stuck in the past, Keith. Mine _or_ your own. You have a _future_. One I never got to have. Keep pushing toward it.”

He was fading quickly, as well as the Altean landscape around him, and Keith felt himself rising as if from underwater.

“Oh, and Keith…” Marmora’s voice echoed in his ears, “if you make a promise… this time, keep it.”

 

**~Lance~**

 

Almost as soon as his head hit the pillow, Lance felt sleep wash over him like waves on a beach. He sank, down, down, down, and then he was coming back up to the surface. He was in the pool in the castle, swimming through the suspended water, the ground below him. Gravity didn’t seem to matter in this dream; he felt light, swimming gracefully, and then he was stepping out, to dry off and clean up, probably.

The bathroom mirrors were all misted up, as if someone had taken a particularly long, hot shower, completely covering them in condensation, dulling his reflection. He paused at one of them, to look at himself in the mirror. Despite the fog, he could more or less make himself out: the wavy brown hair, the beady blue eyes, the flash of white against his skin.

He reached up to wipe away the condensation from the mirror, to get a clearer image, but when he did, the reflection changed completely. As his hand cleared the water away from the glass, the person behind it had changed. Long, straight white hair fell elegantly over his shoulders, and light blue-green crescent marks just above his cheekbones distinguished the person looking back at him from his own reflection.

It wasn’t him, but Althos, instead.

They both grinned at each other. “Woah, cool!” they both said, and Lance blinked a bit in surprise, and then laughed. This was a dream, after all, so there was no point in thinking too much about whether it made sense. He reached out to touch the glass again, and Althos’ hand followed his, but as their reflections were about to touch, the image changed. Rather than through a reflection, Althos was standing in front of him, complete and confident. They were no longer in the bathroom in the Castle of Lions, but standing on the sand of a beach, waves lapping at their feet. _Home_ , Lance thought with a painful twinge.

Althos broke his gaze, looking around. “Oh, now this is _nice_ . Just get some juice, a hot boyfriend, and a couple of chairs, and this would be the _life_.”

Lance felt a grin spread across his face. Oh he _liked_ Althos. He was pretty sure he’d said that exact line at least once himself. “I’ve already got the hot boyfriend.”

“Good, because that’s the tough part,” Althos smirked, stepping back. He was dressed in Altean clothes of multiple shades of blue, accented by white and silver. The ocean breeze stirred the light blue cape draped over his shoulders, and Lance wondered if he’d look that handsome if he started wearing a cape.

“Of course you would,” Althos said with a raised eyebrow.

“Huh?”

“Look this handsome if you started wearing a cape. Of course you would.”

Lance blinked. “Uh… did I say that out loud?”

“No. You don’t have to. This is a dream, man. Not to mention that I’m _you_ , so I know how you think.”

“What do you mean, you’re me?”

Althos drew himself up to his full height, his eyes twinkling. He was actually just a _bit_ taller than Lance-- and a bit older, too. But otherwise, they actually didn’t look that different, the more Lance looked at him.

“You haven’t figured it out, yet? You’re my second chance, Lance. Seriously, we even have the same name!”

“We do?”

“Yeah! ‘Althos’ means ‘Great Spear’ in Altean. ‘Lance’ is pretty much the same thing.”

“Woah… wait, does that mean I’m like your reincarnation or something?”

“Exactly! And that’s why you’d look just as handsome in a cape as I do.”

Lance let this sink into his brain, and then turned to look out over the ocean. “So how am I talking to you?”

Althos shrugged. “This is a dream, so I can bend the rules a little. Don’t think about it too much, or it’ll give you a headache.”

“So… why are you here?”

“Dunno. I guess you were thinking about me, thanks to bonding with Blue and learning about the past, so now I’m here.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

“Do you ever…” Lance hesitated, trying to think of the best way to ask the question. “Do you ever wish you could go back, do everything differently? Like… what if you hadn’t flown Blue through that last wormhole? What if you _had_ shot Zarkon with Blue’s cannon, even if it had taken out Marmora? You might have even saved Altea.”

Althos sighed, pacing back and forth through the waves as he answered. “There’s a lot I _wish_ I could change, but honestly, if I spend too much time on ‘what-ifs’, I never get to find out what’s coming next, y’know? Besides, it’s too late for all of that now. Me and Marmora got our second chance thanks to you and Keith-- that’s all I could ever ask for. Which I know sounds like a pretty big responsibility, but it’s really not gonna be too hard. Just kinda… live your life, and try to be as happy as possible. Don’t let anyone or anything take that away.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it,” Althos affirmed, turning back to him.

“But what if the same thing happens again?” Lance asked, feeling a sting in his chest as he looked around at the dreamscape that so resembled Veradero Beach. “My home, my whole world, my… my family... gone. Never being able to come back… and never being able to see Keith, or the rest of the team, either? I don’t think I could handle it. Not… not again.”

“So don’t let it happen,” Althos said with a shrug. “Look, take it from me-- if you spend too much time worrying about whether you can do it or not, you’ll never accomplish anything. I mean, don’t go hurtling headfirst into trouble like Marmora-- er, well, Keith-- does. You’ll figure it out. You always do.”

“I always do,” Lance repeated, feeling a smile ghost across his face.

Althos walked back to him, until they were face-to-face. “I do regret one thing, though. And I want you to fix it for me.”

“Really? W-what?”

Althos grinned back at him, even if tears teased at the corners of his eyes. “Tell him you love him. Tell him over and over again, until you think he’d get sick of hearing it, but trust me, he won’t. Say it sarcastically, say it without thinking, say it with your whole heart behind it. It’ll be embarrassing at first, but it gets easier. Tell him you love him, whenever the words jump into your mind, whether it’s in your bed in the middle of the night, or in the heat of battle when you’re already so out of breath that talking kind of hurts. Say it anyway. Don’t hold it back. You need to make up for all of the years I lived when I couldn’t say it to him. So you’d better get started right now.”

Lance swallowed, then nodded. Althos smiled, and then he was fading, as if he had stepped back behind the mirror, and it was starting to fog up again. Oh-- he must be waking up.

“Thanks, Lance. I’m counting on you.”

 

**~Keith~**

 

He woke up with a sore back and neck-- it wasn’t exactly comfortable on the hard floor, even underneath Lance’s hoodie. He yawned and massaged the back of his neck, then pulled the hoodie tighter around himself, pressing his nose against the cloth and breathing in the scent. It smelled like citrus fruit, oddly enough. He’d expected it to smell disgustingly of sweat, but now that he thought about it, he should have guessed that Lance was way too careful about hygiene to leave his hoodie sweaty and gross. It was nice.

He stood up, stretching out the kinks in his back muscles, and then slid his sword back into its sheath on his back, draped the hoodie over his arms and made his way back through the castle, toward his room. He didn’t hear anyone else moving around, not even the mice, so he guessed that he hadn’t actually been asleep all that long. He stepped through the doors, looking around at the sparse walls, when the thought struck him that it was bare because Marmora had spent barely any time in there. And he had spent barely time in there because _he had always slept in Althos’ room_.

That thought pulled a smile across his face, and he looked down at the hoodie in his arms, and then at the wall his room shared with Lance’s. Should he do it? Would that be too much, too fast?

 _It’s the good memories that will be with you when it’s most important, so make as many of them as you can_ , Marmora had said. It was basically telling him that he should do it. And he was pretty sure that Red would agree. Actually, Red would probably be chanting for him to do something raunchy. But he hadn’t thought it out _quite_ that far.

He went back out into the hallway, lifting his hand to knock on the door, just in time for it to open, and Lance to look down at him in surprise.

“Oh, what, Keith?! What’re you-- I was just about to--”

But whatever Lance was just about to do, Keith never really found out, because before he knew it, he was letting the hoodie slide from his hands onto the floor, and he was wrapping his arms around Lance’s neck, gently pulling him down, and Lance didn’t resist, even as Keith kissed him, breathing him in. He smelled like citrus fruit. He’d never liked the smell of citrus fruit before. But he did now.

Lance was surprised at first, but then his eyes fluttered shut and he was leaning forward into the kiss and wrapping his arms around Keith’s back, pulling them both backwards into the room, the door closing behind them.

 _What. Am. I. Doing?!_ Keith asked himself, but didn’t stop. His heart was hammering in his chest, and he felt just as much exhilaration as he had when he’d first flown in Red. Simply put, kissing Lance felt like flying.

Suddenly Lance pulled away, sputtering, “wait, wait, wait, I have something to tell y-”

Oops. Keith hadn’t meant to cut him off-- he was just a bit caught up in the moment, kissing him again.

He pulled back, letting Lance speak. The other boy’s cheeks were flushed, his skin warm where Keith was touching him. “I have to tell you something very important.”

“What?”

Lance smiled, leaning forward to kiss him again.

“I love you.”

**Author's Note:**

> This AU holds a very special place in my heart, and I wanted to write this before season 3 comes out, just in case things become revealed that put a hole in my canon compliance, lol. But for the time being, I wanted to add another one-shot to the Predestination world. I should clarify that I'm leaving the series as "incomplete" not because there's going to be a /sequel/ to Predestination so much as I have no idea how many one-shots I'll write around it. I think the main fic is going to be the only extended work in the "series", because I don't really see how I can write a sequel, but we'll have to wait and see where my muse takes me. Thanks for reading!


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